


Temptation

by DuckInterpreter



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Crowley is sad and lonely and Aziraphale has what he craves, M/M, Temptation, descriptions of non-explicit sex, descriptions of violence, this one got away from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 10:10:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19766029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuckInterpreter/pseuds/DuckInterpreter
Summary: “Go on up,” they said, “cause some trouble. Tempt some angels. Get the humans to eat the forbidden fruit.”Tempt some angels? Crowley (as he would later come to be known) had wondered. To do what?And then he had met Aziraphale and he thought, okay, I can probably do this. He already gave away his sword, I could probably tell them I tempted him into that, lying’s part of the whole thing so that should go down well anyway.And then, almost without thinking, he had stepped towards the angel when water began to fall and the angel had shielded him, without even saying anything.Oh no, Crowley thought.





	Temptation

Technically, it started even before the whole apple thing. 

“Go on up,” they said, “cause some trouble. Tempt some angels. Get the humans to eat the forbidden fruit.”

_ Tempt some angels?  _ Crowley (as he would later come to be known) had wondered.  _ To do what? _

And then he had met Aziraphale and he thought,  _ okay, I can probably do this. He already gave away his sword, I could probably tell them I tempted him into that, lying’s part of the whole thing so that should go down well anyway.  _

And then, almost without thinking, he had stepped towards the angel when water began to fall and the angel had  _ shielded  _ him, without even saying anything. 

_ Oh no, _ Crowley thought. 

  
  
  


The first time is almost on Noah’s arc. Crowley managed to smuggle himself aboard- no-one noticed there were three snakes instead of two- and was wandering when he found the angel deep within the ship, dozing against the flank of a single unicorn. Crowley watched him for a moment, hair the same colour as the unicorn’s coat, and slithered over. 

Aziraphale woke when he coiled his way up his arm and watched him warily, but didn’t move. Once on his shoulder Crowley let his form shift back to human, gently so as not to wake their equine pillow, arm already slung around Aziraphale’s shoulders, rest of him slung half over him. Aziraphale huffed and rolled his eyes, but didn’t move away. 

“Should have known,” he murmured, shaking his head, mouth just slightly quirked. 

He looked away and Crowley was taken for a moment by his profile, by the spicy sweet scent suddenly close enough to smell, and when a huge crack of thunder struck outside he flinched, his hand unconsciously closing around Aziraphale’s. The angel glanced down and looked at him, raising an eyebrow. Crowley swallowed, and Aziraphale glanced at his lips and he thought,  _ this is it. I could have him now, if I wanted.  _

He fled instead.

As he slithered out the door, he thought he heard a soft, angelic, chuckle. 

The first time is eight years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth. 

Crowley had been… affected by the death. He’d been a nice boy, all told, and he’d known what Crowley was and offered him friendship regardless. He asked Crowley not to intervene in what happened, but Crowley had stayed there for the whole three days, keeping vigil, talking to him when he could get close enough and the boy was lucid. 

Then he’d gone back to Europe and gotten smashed. He remembered occasionally stumbling from one bar to another, but not much else, not until the oysters.

He sobered himself as much as he could handle and leaned heavily on Aziraphale when they went to lunch. The oysters were nice. 

After Aziraphale had taken him to his home, a villa that overlooked the ocean, and laid him down. 

“Wait,” Crowley murmured, snagging Aziraphale’s hand as he turned to go, “I don’t wanna-,” 

Aziraphale glanced back and blinked. “Oh,” he said, softly, “of course.” 

He laid down beside him and stroked his hair. It grew to accommodate such affections, into soft curls that spread on the bed. Gently, like he was something fragile, Aziraphale had kissed him. 

Crowley had gasped, the last of the alcohol in his body evaporating with a thought. Aziraphale pulled away, eyes worried, and Crowley drew him back, hungry for that tenderness, that attention, the soothing of his raw soul. 

And Aziraphale had provided, kissing him so sweetly he thought he might die, carefully removing his clothing, and- Crowley couldn’t help but feel- worshipping every part of his body. He paused every time before he started doing something new, looking at him before Crowley nodded jerkily. Yes, he said, before Aziraphale licked his way across his chest, finding how spectacularly sensitive his nipples were. Yes, before Aziraphale palmed the cock he hadn’t had an hour before. Yes, before Aziraphale took him into his mouth. Yes, before Aziraphale slipped inside him. Crowley writhed with wordless wonder under the angel, who murmured the whole time, sweet nothings that Crowley didn’t fully understand, that made him feel like nothing had. 

He slept for the first time that night, bracketed against Aziraphale’s soft form. 

He left before the sun rose, still wordless, while Aziraphale watched him through half-closed eyes. 

He didn’t report it to Hell. 

They saw each other once or twice. Only a few years later, at a bacchanal, Crowley moved across the sea of bodies to one topped with platinum blonde curls and he smiled wickedly and nudged the man lavishing Aziraphale with attention out of the way and took over. Neither spoke, and Aziraphale disappeared into the crush not long after they’d both spent. Crowley didn’t follow him, but his reptile eyes tracked the golden hair for as long as he could. 

War happened, occasionally. Crowley, as a rule, tended to stay close enough to claim credit, but not close enough to smell the blood. In the Ottoman Empire during the 1500’s, he misjudged the distance and ended up in the thick of it which was, of course, where he stumbled across Aziraphale. 

He’d been helping the wounded, and struck down. Crowley cursed him as he gathered him in his arms, made them both invisible, and bundled him into the closest shelter. 

“Come on, angel,” he muttered, not in English but for the purposes of story, “come on, don’t let some kid’s arrow discorporate you, I like this form.” He knelt beside the form, staunching the flow of golden blood that burnt his hands. 

Aziraphale’s eyes fluttered and he smiled weakly, teeth and tongue golden with blood. Crowley wanted to kiss him. “You like this form too well, my dear,” he said. He coughed. 

“Psh,” Crowley said, “I can- I can fix it for you, just a little demonic miracle-,”

Aziraphale clutched his wrist, nails digging in. “Do not,” he whispered, “you would never be able to explain that. I just-,” he sighed, breath leaving and leaving and leaving before he finally shuddered and inhaled, “just a moment, I can do it,” he coughed and the molted blood trickled to pool on the ground. 

Crowley ground his teeth. 

Aziraphale’s eyes glazed a little. “Such a beautiful serpent,” he whispered, “can you imagine? Black like night, before night even existed. I look at the stars and it’s like they came from him, that beautiful serpent, inspired by his scales.” He looked afraid, eyes still distant. “You won’t tell Gabriel will you? He’d be so cross.” 

Crowley was still blinking, but he shook his head, long red hair swaying with his movement. 

“I won’t tell him, love. It’s okay.” 

Aziraphale sighed, relaxed, his eyes sliding closed. 

Crowley bit his lip and looked around. 

“Wake up,” he whispered, a hand against his cheek (too soft, too soft, too much like care), “if you’re going to go- at least let me taste you once more.” 

Aziraphale’s eyes fluttered again, but focused a little more. “Crowley?” he said, blinking, “is that you?” 

Crowley kissed him. 

It burnt. Oh God but it burnt. And as it burnt he felt  _ something  _ being pulled from him. He opened himself up as well as he knew how and exhaled and kissed an angel and burnt. 

Aziraphale gasped and shuddered, then exploded with light. 

When it cleared, the blood was gone, the arrow lying beside Aziraphale without mark. Crowley fled, eyes still blinking away the light. 

Later, when Hell asked about it- it wasn’t really a miracle, more like lending power- Crowley told them he kept a squadron alive long enough to kill the sultan. They shrugged and shuffled their papers and, among the denizen’s pustules and boils, no-one noticed the blisters on his tongue. 

He stayed a little closer than he had to, after that. He didn’t want the angel risking his skin when he didn’t have to, and if that meant doing the occasional miracle then so be it, he didn’t care that much. And there was something fun about watching Aziraphale do a temptation. Like he was watching someone else succumb to whatever it was that hit him whenever those grey-blue eyes looked at him. 

The first time he crowded Aziraphale against a wall and kissed him so thoroughly Aziraphale’s arms twined around his neck for support. 

“I suppose that means good job, hm?” Aziraphale asked, breathlessness giving away his slightly careless tone. 

Crowley nipped his neck, right at the join to the shoulder, in response. Aziraphale gasped and clung to him. 

Time passed. As friendship grew, Crowley found himself less… not inclined, per se, but comfortable, perhaps, with their more physical collisions. 

Fucking the enemy, he thought, was an act of transgression, and he was all about transgression. Fucking a friend was, could be, might be, construed as something else. 

Aziraphale didn’t seem to notice. He was as tactile as ever, of course, shoulders bumping against his, arm twined around his sometimes, friendly, familiar. It burnt in a way. Nothing physical, not like the blood, something worse. Something that lingered, like he could feel the hand on the crook of his arm for days after. 

As the years passed and social mores changed, even though Aziraphale was always a little behind them, even those touches became more rare, less lingering, and that hurt more, somehow. Crowley took every chance to become drunk, uncoordinated, bumping into one another, splaying arms and legs into his space. Aziraphale accepted it like he accepted everything else. 

At the turn of the 20th century, platonic touches seemed to dry up all at once. Crowley later read about the spreading gay panic and rolled his eyes, but here is the thing; Snakes are cold blooded, and maybe demons aren’t, but they are  _ something  _ and he felt- cold. He felt sharp and prickly and too raw and cold cold cold. He stayed out of the sunshine and respected the distance Aziraphale left between them, not even the brushing of fingers to warm him. He wished he could taste Aziraphale’s blood again. He wished- he didn’t know. He just wished. 

It was, then, perhaps an ill-timed meeting when he stumbled away from a fight- nothing serious, just a few locals with blunt objects who’d caught a glimpse of his eyes, and he sent them off to fight one another, but not before catching one or two blows himself and he hadn’t had a chance to shake off the injuries before he stumbled into a white-clad figure. 

“Oh dear,” Aziraphale said mildly, bracing Crowley and stumbling with him back into the darkness of the now-empty ally. 

“Angel,” Crowley said, sharp, and the pain and the cold were overwhelming and he found himself crowding Aziraphale, nose pushing into the hollow of his neck. Aziraphale made a small, needy, noise, and tangled his fingers into Crowley’s hair and he was done. 

He kissed him, the taste of his own blood mingling with the spiced honey taste of the angel and he pulled back, blue-black blood smeared on one side of Aziraphale’s mouth, his eyes wide, pupils blown. Crowley touched his face, pulled himself back enough to ask, “the blood, oh- does it hurt?” 

“Hurt?” Aziraphale blinked, “me? No, why?” 

His hands were still in Crowley’s hair and, instead of answering, Crowley kissed him, sharp and wanting and not interested in waiting. Aziraphale seemed to be on the same page, pushing hands into clothing, groaning into Crowley’s mouth, wanting and taking and giving so sweetly it almost hurt and Crowley was warm. 

But it was perhaps a little indiscrete. Crowley’s next note from Hell mentioned him “successfully tempting an ethereal being” and he felt bile rise in his throat, and he didn’t touch Aziraphale again, afraid of what Heaven may have said to him, or done, afraid, and he grew used to the cold and the pain and life went on. 

Until it didn’t, almost. When Aziraphale clasped his hand on the battlefield it was the first time they had touched in a century and it gave Crowley the strength to face down Lucifer Morningstar himself, and he would again. 

Weeks later, they lounged together in the bookshop. Crowley was slowly allowing small touches again, just for a little while, now that Hell wasn’t watching him, waiting for Aziraphale to pull back, but he never did. He never had. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, word slurring slightly around the amount of wine they had drunk, “you asked me once-,” he hiccuped, “if your blood hurt me.”

Crowley blinked slowly. “Yess,” he said, serpentine tongue betraying the lurch in his stomach. 

“Why did you- hic- think it would? Strange thing to think, none of your other-,” he reddened a little, “you’ve never hurt me, anyway, is all.” 

Crowley cocked his head. He wished he was wearing his glasses, but he had abandoned them some hours earlier. Honesty was probably best, he thought. He was a rubbish liar even at the best of times. 

“Angel blood hurtss,” he said. “It- it burnss.” 

Aziraphale’s eyes widened, and something strange crossed them. Perhaps an echo of fear, Crowley thought. “How, uh, how would you know that?” 

Crowley raised a brow and took a long drink. 

Aziraphale stood, suddenly, knocking over both his half-full wine glasses. “The- ott- ottoman empire! I thought that-,” he stopped, gnawed a lip, then took a deep breath, eyes closed. When he opened them again, they were clear and sober. 

“I thought I was hallucinating. I thought I saw a snake with stars in its scales. I was dying-,” his eyes went distant, long memory working, “and you… you healed me. That was you?” 

Crowley did not want to be sober, so he stayed where he was and nodded, half a shrug, trying for non-commital. “I di’nt heal you, assuch. Just leant you a lil power.” 

“You never said anything,” Aziraphale said softly. “And I burnt you?” 

“Neither d’you,” Crowley muttered, “and some- some things should be forgotten. Don’t worry about the burn though, wasn’t anything compared to- you know,” he gestured vaguely downwards. 

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said. He walked to Crowley and dropped to his knees in front of him, reaching out a hand, as if to stroke his face. Crowley flinched away. 

“You don’t want me to touch you?” Aziraphale asked, stormy eyes soft. 

“I-,” Crowley scowled, unconvincing lies on his tongue. “You don’t want that.”

Aziraphale laughed. It was a soft rumble of a sound, like rain on its way to ease dry earth. “If I remember correctly, I have, in the past, made it fairly clear that that is the opposite of true.” 

“That was before,” Crowley stared at the ground. 

“Before what?” Aziraphale, ever respectful, did not touch him and it hurt, it did. It hurt so much it made Crowley angry, and he shoved himself backward, pushing the heavy couch halfway across the room so he could stand without coming within the space of Aziraphale’s body. 

“Before,” he spat, alcohol evaporating in his veins, “I got a commendation from Hell for a good job  _ tempting  _ you- for corrupting your fucking angelic virtue by fucking you in an alley in 1903. Okay? Are you happy? Do you still want to  _ touch  _ me with your soft fucking hands?” 

Impossibly, Aziraphale’s eyes softened. 

“1903?” he asked. 

Tightly, Crowley nodded. 

Aziraphale hummed. “Do you mind if I come a little closer?” 

Crowley stared, then shook his head, ever so slightly, and Aziraphale came close enough to touch. He touched Crowley’s jacket, fussing with a button for a moment. 

“And what of, hm, was it about two milennia earlier? When you first-,” he coughed gently, “corrupted my angelic virtue? And the time after that, and the time after that? Did you also get commendations for those times because it seems, to me, that you would only really get one the first time, no?” 

“I-,” Crowley was distracted by the angel’s proximity, “they didn’t know.” 

“Why not?” Aziraphale undid Crowley’s top button, revealing a triangle of pale skin. 

“That was for… for me,” Crowley burned with shame, with the selfishness of it. 

“Not for Hell?” 

Crowley shook his head. 

Aziraphale undid another button. 

“Love does not corrupt, my dear, regardless of what Hell may believe. No matter how it is shown.” 

Aziraphale looked him in the eyes, burning emotion in them. “I love you,” he said, as though it were the most simple thing in the world, “I have loved you since the beginning, and I will until the very end, and I will have you however you would like. Would you have me?” 

Crowley nodded, sharp, eyes grown fully golden, teeth sharper than usual, his heart filling with something indescribable. 

“May I kiss you?” Aziraphale began to ask. 

Crowley beat him to it. 

**Author's Note:**

> This originally had a different kind of arc but it got away from me and I wanted to post it so it's Edited Lite.
> 
> The canon is like... mostly book with a little tv show mixed in. I took some liberties, is that I'm saying.


End file.
